franandaj
I'm so happy, I could BOUNCE!
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
- Messages
- 37,723
You mean I DO get to go to WDW in 2014?????
Thats exactly what I said, You mean we get to go to WDW in 2014? Ruthie (luvchefmic) was there and she can verify it.
Those of you who know me are not surprised to know that I have my trips planned all the way through 2015 and am working on the rough outline for 2016. There was no room in 2014 for a trip to WDW with a road trip in early May, Gay Games in Cleveland in August and a cruise combined with a Lesbian and Gay Band Association trip in Oct/Nov. Fran said the cats would revolt and forget who we were so we couldnt be gone that many times during the year.
Well, since we are taking friends with us in March of 2015, and we do have Disneyland right here, so I supposed we can live without it. We did go all the way from April 2001 until January 2007 without a trip. However, since buying DVC in 2007, weve been back every year with the exception of 2012 (due to medical reasons). So I was all ready to accept my fate.
And then on our last trip we went to Theme Park Connection those of you who have been along for the ride on past TRs know that Fran loves to shop. She practically became TPCs best customer at the D23 Expo (when I finish that TR youll have the final reveal). But we visited their warehouse in Orlando on this last trip to WDW, and when she found out that they were moving to a new, bigger and better warehouse, well she HAD to come back and see it! And thats when she said it, We should come back here next year when they are in their new location!
Here we are at TPC with Ruthie, this is just after Fran said we could come back in 2014.
But it didnt become real until November 6, when we actually booked our DVC stay. I was astonished that there was still an entire week available at the Villas at the Grand Floridian in a one bedroom unit. Now I supposed we were only one week past the 7 month mark, but still, I thought it would be years before we actually had a chance at staying there! I grabbed us an HA Villa since the BCV one worked out so nicely for us. I stole these pictures from Kat4Disney off the VGF Owners Thread. I hope that she doesnt mind!
View:
The next step was flights. I began to look into flights to MCO and it appears that American Airlines has likely discontinued our favorite non-stop flight to Orlando from LAX. We learned on our trip to Atlanta this Fall that we can switch planes in DFW, but we need adequate time to do so. I was able to book us some flights with substantial layover times, our outbound flight has 2 ½ hours layover and the return flight has almost three hours layover. Im sure you think Im crazy for wanting a longer layover, but with an airport that large and we move really slowly, wed rather have a planned wait at the airport instead of miss our flight and have a forced wait.
Heres the kicker. There were no reasonable flights that arrived on May 29th. Either they required three different legs, or a 1AM departure and the flight actually didnt arrive until the 30th, AFTER our check in day. It turned out that to get a decent flight we would have to come in on Wednesday May 28th.
We ended up with these flights
Depart LAX 6:30 AM to DFW arrives at 11:30AM
Depart DFW 1:40PM to MCO arrive at 5:10PM
Hopefully 2 hours and 10 minutes will be a long enough layover to get from plane to plane.
Return flight
Depart MCO 11:45AM arrive DFW 1:35PM
Depart DFW 4:15PM arrive LAX at 5:35PM
Here we have a definitely comfortable 2½ hours between flights
So the next question was where to stay? We have always wanted to stay at the Art of Animation since it opened, but I really didnt want to stay in the Little Mermaid section. They cant guarantee queen beds and the two bed rooms have doubles. We would have to sleep in two separate beds and after 17 years, that just doesnt seem right!
One of the family suites in the Nemo, Cars or Lion King Section were running at $365 per night!
Since that was the only value resort that appealed at all to us, we began looking at moderate resorts for the night. We have stayed at POR, Fran has stayed at CBR, so we decided that checking out CSR was the best option. We were able to get an HA room, evidently it has a Queen Bed AND a King Bed! Not that we need two beds, but since they didnt have a one King only available, we took the one King one Queen.
So flights, check!
Accomodations, check!
Next up, ADRS and plans!
You get to go in 2014! I'm so happy for you. And the VGF? Swanky. It looks amazing. Pam's report has got me wanting to give it a go. 
and you are special! 
over here! Nice to see you!
Is that a good wow?
